affection

The act of affecting or acting upon.

Noun

  1. The act of affecting or acting upon.
  2. The state of being affected, especially: a change in, or alteration of, the emotional state of a person or other animal, caused by a subjective affect (a subjective feeling or emotion), which arises in response to a stimulus which may result from either thought or perception.
  3. An attribute; a quality or property; a condition.
    • A Porism is a proposition in which it is proposed to demonstrate that some one thing, or more things than one, are given, to which, as also to each of innumerable other things, not given indeed, but which have the same...
  4. An emotion; a feeling or natural impulse acting upon and swaying the mind.
    • Our affections for wild animals are distributed very unevenly. Take insects. - 2013 August 23, Mark Cocker, “Wings of Desire”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 11, page 26:
    • It is known that each individual has a variety of affections, one affection when in joy, another when in grief, another when in sympathy and compassion, another when in sincerity and truth, another when in love and...
  5. A feeling of love or strong attachment; a feeling of enjoyable and comforting fondness.
    • I have a lot of affection for my little sister.
    • The marriage therapist suggested they show each other more affection.
    • Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected. - 1813 January...
  6. A disease; a morbid symptom; a malady.
    • a pulmonary affection - 1834, Samuel George Morton, Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption:
    • The recedent or retrograde form is marked by a sudden subsidence of the inflammatory state of the joints, succeeded immediately by an affection of some internal part, where is thenceforth the seat of the morbid...
    • A heavy clay soil is bad for all neuralgics, and the house should be dry, and on a sandy or gravel soil. The desideratum for all neuralgic affections is perpetual summer […] - 1907, The Medical Brief, volume 35, page...

Origin

From Middle English affection, affeccion, affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affectiōnem, from affectiō; equivalent to affect + -ion.

Forms

affections

Synonyms

attachment fondness kindness love passion tenderness

Related

affect affectation affecter affective aficionado

Derived

affectional affectionate affectionated affectionately affectionateness affectioned affectionless affectious alienation of affection misaffection nonaffection public display of affection unaffection

Verb

  1. To feel affection for.
    • Why, truth is truth, I do not think my lady Isabella ever much affectioned my young lord, your son: yet he was a sweet youth as one should see. - 1764, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, section V:

Forms

affections affectioning affectioned